Schools Rally to Honor the Fallen

Central Virginia Community College

SCHOOLS RALLY TO HONOR THE FALLEN

Lynchburg, VA /Media Release/11/7/11 – Following the 10th anniversary of September 11 tragedy, Central Virginia Community College (CVCC) has joined a nationwide grass-roots effort to honor American service men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past decade.

On Veterans Day, Friday, Nov. 11, campus and community volunteers at more than 145 college and universities across the nation will read the names of the 6,200-plus casualties of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF), now called Operation New Dawn.

Each campus participating in Remembrance Day National Roll Call will organize its own reading of names and will observe at 11 a.m. EST a simultaneous nationwide minute of silence. Currently more than 145 schools nationwide have agreed to participate in the event.

The Remembrance Day National Roll Call is sponsored nationally by the Veterans Knowledge Community of NASPA Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. NASPA is a 12,000-member association for the advancement, health, and sustainability of the student affairs professionals. The Veterans Knowledge Community (VKC) mission is to advocate for best practices to help student veterans transition to college and succeed. As the National Roll Call sponsor, the goal of VKC is to have at least one institution in each of the 50 states participate in the event.

Lt. Col. (Ret) Brett Morris, the National Roll Call coordinator, said, “We wanted to rally campus communities across the nation to send a powerful message to the troops currently serving that their peers have not forgotten their sacrifices, or those of the fallen.”

“The reading of individual names is very poignant because it emphasizes the significance of each and every life lost,” said Morris, a retired Army officer and the associate director for veterans affairs at Eastern Kentucky University. “Like the names inscribed at the new 9-11 Memorial in New York, each of the fallen deserve to be remembered for their sacrifice. There is no effort to raise money or promote individual programs. The event is simply to honor those who have sacrificed so much on our behalf.”

The CVCC Ceremony will commence in the Student Center at 8:15 am. Dr. Capps, President of CVCC, and Daniel Jones, President of CVCC’s Veteran’s Organization, will have opening remarks. The readers will begin after the National Anthem is sung. We will stop around 10:50 am for Jesse Rutherford’s remarks on the 11:00 am moment of silence and then return to reading names.

During this event the names of all of the fallen soldiers from the current conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan will be read. The event will last approximately eight hours since over 6,200+ names will be respected for their ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Please plan to stop by and reflect as the day progresses. There will be a closing ceremony when the reading is finished.

The National Roll Call is grateful to iCasualties.org for the steadfast recording of the fallen over the past ten years, from which the names of the fallen have been derived.

For information about the CVCC Roll Call events contact Linda Adams at 434-832-7654 or via email at mailto:adamsl@cvcc.vccs.edu. For more information about the National Roll Call effort, contact Brett Morris at remembrancerollcall@gmail.com or visit va.eku.edu/rollcall to see a list of participating schools.

FOR EDITORS, NEWS DIRECTORS ONLY – For more information, contact Lt. Col. Brett Morris at brett.morris@eku.edu or at 859-622-7838 (office) or 859-582-5774 (mobile).

Release Date: 3:00 PM (EST) 11/7/2011

Release Number: 111107 SCHOOLS RALLY TO HONOR THE FALLEN

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Media Contact:

Vinca A. Dow

Coordinator, Public Relations and Marketing

Central Virginia Community College

(434) 832-7609

dowv@cvcc.vccs.edu

A Member Institution of the Virginia Community College System.